Field of the Invention
The present description regards a method and a machine for producing absorbent sanitary articles.
In particular, the present invention is preferably used for producing absorbent sanitary articles, such as, for example, diapers for children and/or incontinence pads for adults, comprising a central body and two pairs of side panels connected to the ends of the central body.
Description of Prior Art
In the field of absorbent sanitary articles, the market requires machines and manufacturing methods able to produce absorbent articles that comprise:
a central body provided with an absorbent element, which can be placed around the user's crotch region, which extends in the longitudinal direction between a first waist end or rear end and a second waist end or front end, opposite to each other,
a first pair of side panels or rear panels connected to the first waist end or rear end of the central body and able to define, at least in part, the waist end of the article; and
a second pair of side panels or front panels connected to the second waist end or front end of the central body and able to define, at least in part, the waistband of the article.
The aforesaid machines, and their manufacturing methods, must ensure an optimal management of the processes of manipulating and applying the side panels, in particular for absorbent articles intended for incontinent adults. In this case, absorbent articles are involved that can have a total length and width of about one meter, or rather, dimensions such as to enable the individual absorbent article to achieve circumferences in the order of 200 cm.
It is evident that for absorbent products of these dimensions, the operations of forming and applying the side panels on the central body of the sanitary article are critical, and these operations are made even more difficult by the very high production rates, in the order of hundreds of absorbent articles per minute (typically 300-400 absorbent articles per minute).
To the above it should be added that a further fundamental requirement for sanitary articles intended for incontinent users is to have the side panels with the ends forming the openings of the legs shaped so as to confer a classic hourglass configuration to the absorbent article.
The conventional methods for producing shaped panels imply that the conformation of the shape is created by removing part of the material of the panels themselves, thereby generating waste that would negatively affect the cost of the absorbent article.
The requirements outlined above highlight two problems:
applying the side panels on individual absorbent products with a simple method and that can eliminate the folding operations of the side panels on the central body of the sanitary article; and
providing shaped side panels, which can be formed without generating waste of material.